Fantastic! This work really confirms much of what we see from voters in our state. The narrative is well-researched and clear. I can easily see how we can draw from this for our work this year and beyond.
Winning Jobs Narrative Project
Messaging Guide
A working people-centered narrative architecture — for jobs, work, and the economy — that resonates across race and geography.
Our Challenge
Strengthening Our Connection with Working People
Advancing a progressive agenda depends on a strong and resilient majority, and that majority cannot be built without working people across race and geography.
Recently, we have seen shifts to the Right among some non-college Black and brown voters. This parallels the shift we have seen over the last couple of decades with white non-college voters, which has contributed significantly to a rural/urban political divide and diminishes our political strength. The combination of these trends imperils our entire progressive movement.
We can and must be a movement for working people, and a key to doing that is winning on the issues working people, across race and geography, prioritize most – jobs and the economy.
The Winning Jobs Narrative Architecture
A Working People-Centered Narrative for Jobs, Work, and the Economy
Narrative is developed over time through consistent messaging and storytelling. Following an ambitious research agenda, the Winning Jobs Narrative team has developed a narrative architecture that progressive advocates and leaders can draw from to frame a broad range of issues.
Radical cooperation has been our guiding principle. We’ve built on the work of others and supplemented that work with new insights that we’re sharing broadly to inspire a continuing conversation.
Our expansive research agenda began with an in-depth review of dozens of research projects from state and national partners to identify narrative opportunities and potential research gaps. We followed that with a six-month qualitative research phase that included nearly 3,000 conversations with voters in 17 states–including nearly 2,500 canvass conversations, 150 field ethnographic interviews with voters in their communities, 80 online journals, and eight focus groups. We then conducted a large-scale quantitative phase with more than 50,000 survey interviews, including two national online surveys, multiple rounds of A/B message tests, and a national Spanish-language message test.
Our work is ongoing. We’re partnering with non-profit advocacy and education colleagues across the progressive movement to identify ways we can apply the narrative architecture in messaging across issues at both the state and national level. We’re looking for collaborators!
Our Team
We have engaged hundreds of researchers, advocates, progressive leaders, and funders throughout this project. Too many to list here. But we’d like to call attention to a few firms and individuals who have been core to this project along the way:
Advisors
Special thanks to the individuals who have shared their insights and provided feedback from the outset of this project:
Julie Bomar, Wisconsin Farmers Union | Megan Collier, We the People Michigan | Ted Fertik, Working Families Party Rebecca Lynn Johnson, Pennsylvania Stands Up | Margarida Jorge, Healthcare for America Now Jacob Swensen Lengyel, formerly of Pennsylvania Stands Up | Carmen Lopez, State Innovation Exchange Matt Morrison, Working America | Kristian Ramos, Autonomy Strategies and Way to Win Rinku Sen, Narrative Initiative
Julie Bomar, Wisconsin Farmers Union | Megan Collier, We the People Michigan | Ted Fertik, Working Families Party | Rebecca Lynn Johnson, Pennsylvania Stands Up | Margarida Jorge, Healthcare for America Now | Jacob Swensen Lengyel, formerly of Pennsylvania Stands Up | Carmen Lopez, State Innovation Exchange | Matt Morrison, Working America | Kristian Ramos, Autonomy Strategies and Way to Win | Rinku Sen, Narrative Initiative
What advocates are saying
Some of the great things our partners are saying about the Winning Jobs Narrative Project